The present invention relates to sending data representative of a photographic image from a self-service digital photograph processing station, such as a photo kiosk, to a remote printing facility. More particularly, the present invention relates to sending data representative of a photographic image from a self-service digital photograph processing station to a remote printing facility identified using at least a portion of a telephone number of an intended recipient of the photographs.
Many mass market digital photography customers neither have access to a computer connected to the internet, nor have access to a wide bandwidth internet connection. Further, these customers are not able to load digital photographs from a digital camera into a computer and do not have the necessary internet skills to easily transfer photographs to out-of-town relatives. However, they do have the desire to quickly and easily share family photographs with other family members who live in other geographic locations.
Mass market photo retailers, including discount chains, offer in-store digital printing machines, which may be self-service digital photograph processing stations which may be located on a store counter or may be in a photo kiosk. Such stores also are interconnected through high speed networks to the internet and therefore can offer transmission of data representative of a photographic image to a remote store that can then print the photograph so that it can be picked up by an intended recipient, such as a family member.
A major obstacle to this type of service is identifying a store location that the family member can pick up the photograph. Normally users, and therefore retailers, want simple “touch screen” user interfaces for these self-service digital photograph processing stations since full user interfaces tend to slow user progress and are too complicated for most users. While mass market photo retailer web sites usually use ZIP code or city, state searches to locate retail stores, such a method is not easily implemented on a self-service digital photograph processing station since the user interfaces on station normally do not offer mouse or keyboard driven searches. In addition, when users are in a retail location, they may not know the ZIP code or address of the family member that is to receive the photograph. Therefore, these self-service digital photograph processing station users are not able to easily send photographs to people in locations remote from the self-service digital photograph processing station.
What is needed is a method for allowing a self-service digital photograph processing station user to more easily select a photograph printing facility that is located in a convenient location relative to the intended recipient of the photograph.